Dana Schutz’s Emmett Till Painting Temporarily Removed From Whitney Biennial
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Talya Zax April 4, 2017
The 2017 Whitney Biennial, while mostly well-reviewed, has been dominated by controversy over Dana Schutz’s painting “Open Casket,” based on a photograph of Emmett Till in his coffin.
Till was a 14-year-old black boy who was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of flirting with a white woman. His lynching, and his mother’s decision to display his body in an open casket, has often been cited as the initiating incident of the Civil Rights Movement.
While a widely-circulated petition to the Biennial’s curators to remove the painting from the exhibit, and subsequently destroy it, met little sympathy from the Whitney, the Museum has temporarily removed “Open Casket” from the exhibit after a leak jeopardized its exhibition space. Also removed were two paintings by Julien Nguyen and four videos by Maya Stovall, a Whitney spokesperson confirmed to Hyperallergic.
All seven artworks were anticipated to be back on view on Wednesday, April 5, the spokesperson said.
The furor over “Open Casket” charged Schutz, a white woman, with appropriating black culture and sensationalizing black deaths.
In response to questions from artnet on her decisions regarding the work, Schutz admitted “I always had issues with making this painting, everything about it. And it is still uncertain for me.” Asked if the response to the painting would influence her future artistic choices, she said “I’m sure it has to.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
